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thinker said:
Quote Guy's surgery went well and he is in good spirits. His pain is at a minimum because he had no circulation in the foot to begin with. And I was happy to hear from his wife that the surgeons removed only his toes. But Guy told me they said that they would be removing his foot to the ankles. Anyway, I am glad for him and I am more inclined now to allow him to return to work after he is fully recovered. But I will still require a doctor's release note.
Seeking replied:
Quote As we all knew, God answers prayer! But Stu objected to Seeking saying:
Quote No, the surgeons cut off his toes. They saved a man from serious illness caused by your god's 'design' that gave him a pancreas not up to the job. Then Thinker said:
Quote Stu,
You will receive a pm from me inviting you to come here to discuss this. And I hope the administrators will allow you to express all your feelings and opinions. It would give me great joy to engage with you about Seeking's 'god' which is also my 'god'.But for starters let me say this: Christians make false statements concerning God's Person and works. They say that God created everything “perfect.” Then they talk out of the other side of their mouths and say that all the problems in the world are due to sin. But if God had created man “perfect” then man would not have sinned. It's that simple! So I understand your objections and I am prepared to answer.
God did not want to create man perfect. He wanted to create man mortal. He wanted to create pancreas's that were not “up to the job.” But note what the apostle Paul said. He said that the corruptible body must come first:
Quote However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural [corruptible], and afterwards the spiritual (I Corinthians 15:46) So man would have eventually died anyway whether he sinned or not. That's the way God wanted it for He had a GREATER PURPOSE in mind. But you will read replies to what I say from people like Nick who don't care about the facts. But I invite you to discuss this with me for I care only about facts.
thinker
And they're off!
Real science, working on real evidence, might say that the beta cells of pancreases are subjected to new environmental stresses that were not a part of the life of the hunter-gatherer human 20,000 years ago, namely that when people get obese and put huge demands on their pancreases to produce large amounts of insulin they start to wear out: Type 2 diabetes is the result, and the early raised glucose levels are toxic to the beta cells, hastening the condition. We have never had such access to food, being evolved to seek out whatever pickings the savanna can provide us, but not supermarkets full of stuff that we do not have to run and hunt for.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition with genetic precursors, probably triggered by an immune response to a virus, that becomes an immune response to beta cells because they look the same to the immune system. Adult-onset Type 1 diabetes is becoming much more prevalent, indicating perhaps something about the prevalence of such viruses.
This is a case of natural selection providing us with a perfectly good pancreas but us changing the environment / having the environment change faster than we can adapt by evolutionary change. Of course humans lived shorter, more brutal lives up until quite recently in history, but it is still clear from the diets and lifestyle habits of different cultures around the world that we have changed our world faster than we can adapt physiologically.
What can a fundamentalist christian say about dying beta cells? YECs have no mechanism for the change that has increased the incidence of diabetes because, like ignoramuses or liars, they believe the earth was created AFTER the agricultural revolution. While modern science has an amazingly detailed grasp on why people submit to various diseases, many fundies simply attribute it all to “sin” or “the fall” or some other medieval nonsense. To tell someone he has Type 2 diabetes because of lifestyle factors is fair, but for someone with Type 1 diabetes it is just nasty to blame that on sin. Why would it be that a just god delivered diseases at random, regardless of the piety or otherwise of the sufferer?
Saul of Tarsus, in Corinthians calls the body corruptible, and we know that, and we know that more than 99% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. The point is, that if there is a designer, and if the earth is not more than a few thousand years old, the the pancreas has not been designed for the purpose to which we put it, which was a different purpose from the more appropriate use it had when we were hunter-gatherers, thousands of years before the earth was created…
Science can say with a high degree of confidence why the man has diabetes. What is the diagnosis of the preacher?
Stuart
Ha ha Stu, you are entertaining at least.
It's the cause thing again isn't it Stu.
Scripture says sin is the root cause of death and decay.
Again you are not going back far enough. You are getting lost in the details and seem to have a hard time thinking about the cause.
I will try and assist. Perfection doesn't break down and is flawless. We have never seen perfection, yet we have a word for the concept. Something in our conscience helps us understand something we have never seen or experienced.
If perfection exists, then we need to explain how perfection can end or how it can change into a flaw.
The answer is free-will. It exists in order to be able to choose and this makes us different to a robot that just obeys with no other choice. With choice there is risk, the risk to not choose perfection and the alternative choice to perfection is sin.
Once sin is chosen, then sin becomes corruption. Corruption can never be reversed. When corruption starts eating away an apple, you can never make the apple whole again.
We are all being corrupted by sin, but some of us are being saved. Not our mortal remains, but our souls. But not all will choose eternal life that is being offered. Eternal life is given to the righteous. Not to the wicked.
This is what it is to be born from above. To be given a new spirit which makes you see in a different light. Even though the body decays, the spirit lives on. But some will die a second death. Like all of us, our bodies decay and die. But some will lose their spirit/soul too. They will perish/be destroyed forever.
Wow, an intelligent, iinformative post from Stu and a response full of fluff and tired, worn-out dogma from t8. Whouda thunkit?
I get the feeling you don't like me very much KJ.
Anyway, I think its not wise for me to get lost in the details and not be able to step back and decide what the cause is. Time being the real reason for this.
Sure we can all agree on faulty DNA code, viruses, and other nasties in creation. There is no debate here. The debate is obviously the root cause and I am cutting to the chase as I am sure you know already that it would come down to this eventually, after 10 thousand lines or so.
Stu wants to engage in a debate so he can put his scientific knowledge on display, but that is never going to prove or disprove God's existence because you need to go back way before all things and think about how it started. Many people who reason that God doesn't exist give all this scientific evidence that has nothing to do with that question at all.
And sorry KJ, but I am not really good at dancing to the tune, “here we go round the mulberry bush”. And forums are great for being direct anyway.
But by all means KJ, start dancing. Sounds to me like you know the tune? Why not start up a discussion on how science disproves God. You are free to talk to Stu for as many years as you like on that one.
Oh, and another thing. I actually gave up taking Stu seriously when he stuck his head in the sand regarding the 3 possibilities of how everything came to be. If he was able to dialogue on that, then I would have at least seen a person that is willing to be challenged or talk about the possibilities. But he stuck his head in the sand and said that the first option had a 0.5% chance (or thereabouts) and the other 2 options he had no clue about and then proceeded to ridicule those who believed in the first option.
So how can I take him seriously. I just give him one liners which is more than enough for him to try and make a meal out of.
Quote (t8 @ April 06 2009,06:45) I get the feeling you don't like me very much KJ. You intuition is off. I have nothing against people I really do not know other than words they've written on a forum.
Quote Anyway, I think its not wise for me to get lost in the details and not be able to step back and decide what the cause is. Time being the real reason for this. Sure we can all agree on faulty DNA code, viruses, and other nasties in creation. There is no debate here. The debate is obviously the root cause and I am cutting to the chase as I am sure you know already that it would come down to this eventually, after 10 thousand lines or so.
And what is the root cause? The fall of man? Whenever someone asks “why” Christians typically answer with “God made perfection, humans ruined it”. That is why I said your response was full of tired worn-out dogma. That is what you said, basically. God created a perfect world, gave man free will, and man used his free will to mess things up. Its the only explanation Christians have, but it always gets back to why an omniscient god would create something he knew would fail?
Quote Stu wants to engage in a debate so he can put his scientific knowledge on display, but that is never going to prove or disprove God's existence because you need to go back way before all things and think about how it started. Many people who reason that God doesn't exist give all this scientific evidence that has nothing to do with that question at all. I don't think Stu is trying to prove the nonexistence of any deity. He wants to address such thing as diabetes and how, in its present form, it can exist if the Christian bible is to be believed.
Quote And sorry KJ, but I am not really good at dancing to the tune, “here we go round the mulberry bush”. And forums are great for being direct anyway. Then you should have not responded at all. See how easy that would have been?
Quote But by all means KJ, start dancing. Sounds to me like you know the tune? Why not start up a discussion on how science disproves God. You are free to talk to Stu for as many years as you like on that one. Again, no one here is trying to disprove God. It is basically impossible to prove or disprove a deity.
Quote Oh, and another thing. I actually gave up taking Stu seriously when he stuck his head in the sand regarding the 3 possibilities of how everything came to be. If he was able to dialogue on that, then I would have at least seen a person that is willing to be challenged or talk about the possibilities. But he stuck his head in the sand and said that the first option had a 0.5% chance (or thereabouts) and the other 2 options he had no clue about and then proceeded to ridicule those who believed in the first option. So again I ask, why did you even bother responding to his post?
Quote So how can I take him seriously. I just give him one liners which is more than enough for him to try and make a meal out of. Shame the owner of this site wants to act like a troll.
Quote (Stu @ April 04 2009,16:35) Quote The point is, that if there is a designer, Is there a designer or isn't there? If a scientific conclusion is reached, is there a scientist?
Quote and if the earth is not more than a few thousand years old, the the pancreas has not been designed for the purpose to which we put it, which was a different purpose from the more appropriate use it had when we were hunter-gatherers, Stu, you ask a question of the “preacher” and give him the answer (Science can say with a high degree of confidence why the man has diabetes. What is the diagnosis of the preacher?)
DIAGNOSIS OF THE PREACHER
the the pancreas has not been designed for the purpose to which we put it, which was a different purpose from the more appropriate use it had when we were hunter-gatherers,
That diagnosis is in much fewer words than the scientist, but no less accurate.
Quote thousands of years before the earth was created… What is the location the scientist state we functioned as “hunter-gatherers” thousands of years before the earth was created…
Seeking
Stu said:
Quote To tell someone he has Type 2 diabetes because of lifestyle factors is fair, but for someone with Type 1 diabetes it is just nasty to blame that on sin. Stu,
The creation was made corruptible from the beginning. God ordained the corruptible to be first and then the incorruptible.Paul observed:
Quote However, the spiritual (incorruptible) is not first, but the natural (corruptible) It does not matter how type 1 or type 2 is acquired. The corruptible is FIRST. Then the incorruptible. Even nature declares this rule. So your charge that God is an “incompotent” designer is disproved by your own empiricism.
However, we are in agreement that sin is not the first cause. God is the first cause for man's corruptibility. So it's not a matter of God's supposed incompotency. It is a matter of PURPOSE.
thinker
Quote (thethinker @ April 06 2009,09:55) God is the first cause for man's corruptibility. So it's not a matter of God's supposed incompotency. It is a matter of PURPOSE. thinker
Classic, so your god designed us to fail. If you bought a vehicle with brakes designed to fail, would you take it in stride and blame yourself when you hit a tree?Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,03:40) Quote (thethinker @ April 06 2009,09:55) God is the first cause for man's corruptibility. So it's not a matter of God's supposed incompotency. It is a matter of PURPOSE. thinker
Classic, so your god designed us to fail. If you bought a vehicle with brakes designed to fail, would you take it in stride and blame yourself when you hit a tree?
kejonn,
We observe from the natural world that corruptible things die before they become something more beautiful and maginficent. For instance, the worm spins a cocoon for itself and then lies within it to die. After the renewing processes are finished it becomes a butterfly, a creature more glorious than in its previous existence.The worm lives to die so that it may become a more splendid creature. We hear no griping him. Yet you, a creature made in a higher order will complain about it? Live to die so that you might acquire immortality! The worm doesn't gripe Got the point?
thinker
Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,03:40) Quote (thethinker @ April 06 2009,09:55) God is the first cause for man's corruptibility. So it's not a matter of God's supposed incompotency. It is a matter of PURPOSE. thinker
Classic, so your god designed us to fail. If you bought a vehicle with brakes designed to fail, would you take it in stride and blame yourself when you hit a tree?
Hi KJ.A better analogy is the car is new and then a driver with free will can either drive it with care or drive dangerously.
Your analogy ignored the free-will part.
Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,01:42) Quote (t8 @ April 06 2009,06:45) I get the feeling you don't like me very much KJ. You intuition is off. I have nothing against people I really do not know other than words they've written on a forum.
Quote Anyway, I think its not wise for me to get lost in the details and not be able to step back and decide what the cause is. Time being the real reason for this. Sure we can all agree on faulty DNA code, viruses, and other nasties in creation. There is no debate here. The debate is obviously the root cause and I am cutting to the chase as I am sure you know already that it would come down to this eventually, after 10 thousand lines or so.
And what is the root cause? The fall of man? Whenever someone asks “why” Christians typically answer with “God made perfection, humans ruined it”. That is why I said your response was full of tired worn-out dogma. That is what you said, basically. God created a perfect world, gave man free will, and man used his free will to mess things up. Its the only explanation Christians have, but it always gets back to why an omniscient god would create something he knew would fail?
Quote Stu wants to engage in a debate so he can put his scientific knowledge on display, but that is never going to prove or disprove God's existence because you need to go back way before all things and think about how it started. Many people who reason that God doesn't exist give all this scientific evidence that has nothing to do with that question at all. I don't think Stu is trying to prove the nonexistence of any deity. He wants to address such thing as diabetes and how, in its present form, it can exist if the Christian bible is to be believed.
Quote And sorry KJ, but I am not really good at dancing to the tune, “here we go round the mulberry bush”. And forums are great for being direct anyway. Then you should have not responded at all. See how easy that would have been?
Quote But by all means KJ, start dancing. Sounds to me like you know the tune? Why not start up a discussion on how science disproves God. You are free to talk to Stu for as many years as you like on that one. Again, no one here is trying to disprove God. It is basically impossible to prove or disprove a deity.
Quote Oh, and another thing. I actually gave up taking Stu seriously when he stuck his head in the sand regarding the 3 possibilities of how everything came to be. If he was able to dialogue on that, then I would have at least seen a person that is willing to be challenged or talk about the possibilities. But he stuck his head in the sand and said that the first option had a 0.5% chance (or thereabouts) and the other 2 options he had no clue about and then proceeded to ridicule those who believed in the first option. So again I ask, why did you even bother responding to his post?
Quote So how can I take him seriously. I just give him one liners which is more than enough for him to try and make a meal out of. Shame the owner of this site wants to act like a troll.
Actually Stu has been trying to disprove God with science that is has little or no bearing on that subject since he got here and also by ridiculing any belief in God that people hold to. You are welcome to stick up for him and be his partner if you wish. Antichrist & Atheist versus Believer?
This discussion also is about the ways of God from what I can see, so talking about God is in the subject and if Stu wants to talk about biological code and diabetes etc. Then he can even start up a discussion called Diabetes or “How Diabetes disproves God” or something along those lines. You are then free to join and learn about how diabetes disproves God.
How rich though. When it comes down to believing in God and not believing in him, you decide to side with the team/person who doesn't believe. Priceless! The enemy of my enemy is my friend? What is the logic here? I am curious. Or are you being compelled by something?
Does believing not in the Christ also mean that you don't believe in a creator too? Or is this just a marriage of convenience?
Signed T8 = troll x 8.
Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,01:42) Again, no one here is trying to disprove God. It is basically impossible to prove or disprove a deity.
KJ.So you do not know if there is a God or not, yet you are willing to persecute YHWH and Yeshua. Isn't that at least a bit reckless? Or are you like Stu, where you do not have a clue, except to say that you know for sure that there isn't a God or in your case, you know for sure that YHWH isn't God and Jesus isn't the Christ of God.
I mean the obvious question for both of you is that if you don't have a clue, then why say that God doesn't exist, or that Jesus isn't the Christ. Not having a clue means you know don't know either way and yet your conclusions show that a decision has been made.
If you had jury duty, and you didn't have a clue as to whether the defendant murdered someone, then how could you say that you know for sure it wasn't him if you don't have a clue?
I think you need to ask your self some real questions and not let bias sway you anyway but the truth, or anyway, but the way that believers hold to.
Quote (t8 @ April 06 2009,19:43) Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,03:40) Quote (thethinker @ April 06 2009,09:55) God is the first cause for man's corruptibility. So it's not a matter of God's supposed incompotency. It is a matter of PURPOSE. thinker
Classic, so your god designed us to fail. If you bought a vehicle with brakes designed to fail, would you take it in stride and blame yourself when you hit a tree?
Hi KJ.A better analogy is the car is new and then a driver with free will can either drive it with care or drive dangerously.
Your analogy ignored the free-will part.
Wrong. The idea of a Judeo-Christian view of “reality” is only supported by a compilation of selected books and worshipers of said book. If the god described in this compilation designed us to have “free will” (a concept not supported by the same compilation), then he gave us the very flaw that would destroy us. For what? His pleasure as he tosses billions of souls into hell?Quote (t8 @ April 06 2009,19:53) How rich though. When it comes down to believing in God and not believing in him, you decide to side with the team/person who doesn't believe. Priceless! The enemy of my enemy is my friend? What is the logic here? I am curious. Or are you being compelled by something? There might be a creator. There might not. There might be a team of them. No one truly knows, at least no human. If they did, they could supply more than ancient scribblings as evidence that creator(s) exist.
That being said, I freely admit that I am agnostic towards the idea of god(s), but I am much more certain that the god of the bible is a crock. Bible god mimics all of the bad behaviors of his followers.
“God created man in his own image, and man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.” — Mark Twain
Quote Does believing not in the Christ also mean that you don't believe in a creator too? Or is this just a marriage of convenience?
Convenience. Stu simply speaks against bible god.t8
Quote It's the cause thing again isn't it Stu.
Scripture says sin is the root cause of death and decay.
And clearly the main cause of death in humans has been the malarial parasite, and the main cause of decay is the decomposing action of microorganisms. Is that too much detail for your nasty medieval picture of reality?Quote Again you are not going back far enough. You are getting lost in the details and seem to have a hard time thinking about the cause.
OK, it is too much detail, too fast. I will try and type more slowly.Quote The answer is free-will. It exists in order to be able to choose and this makes us different to a robot that just obeys with no other choice. With choice there is risk, the risk to not choose perfection and the alternative choice to perfection is sin.
Of course most people realise from their own experiences, for example losing weight or giving up smoking say, that free will is an absurd simplification. I guess it is important not to let the details get in the way of a worthy religious fantasy.Quote Once sin is chosen, then sin becomes corruption. Corruption can never be reversed. When corruption starts eating away an apple, you can never make the apple whole again.
See above.Quote We are all being corrupted by sin, but some of us are being saved. Not our mortal remains, but our souls. But not all will choose eternal life that is being offered. Eternal life is given to the righteous. Not to the wicked.
I think I could find scripture to contradict that, and I think you know it.Quote This is what it is to be born from above. To be given a new spirit which makes you see in a different light. Even though the body decays, the spirit lives on. But some will die a second death. Like all of us, our bodies decay and die. But some will lose their spirit/soul too. They will perish/be destroyed forever.
What a really nasty thing to believe. Poor you.Quote Anyway, I think its not wise for me to get lost in the details and not be able to step back and decide what the cause is. Time being the real reason for this.
We can see that. Considering details does not seem to suit you t8.Quote Sure we can all agree on faulty DNA code, viruses, and other nasties in creation. There is no debate here. The debate is obviously the root cause and I am cutting to the chase as I am sure you know already that it would come down to this eventually, after 10 thousand lines or so. Stu wants to engage in a debate so he can put his scientific knowledge on display, but that is never going to prove or disprove God's existence because you need to go back way before all things and think about how it started. Many people who reason that God doesn't exist give all this scientific evidence that has nothing to do with that question at all.
You have nothing to work with either. If your god is ‘not of this world’, then you cannot gain any reliable knowledge about ‘him’. Every mention of your god must be a bluff, or a hope, invented by you or someone else. Called Paul, or John or Moses. Or whatever those authors’ real names were.Quote Why not start up a discussion on how science disproves God. You are free to talk to Stu for as many years as you like on that one.
Neither of us are claiming that science disproves god. Aesthetics does, but that is a different argument.Quote Oh, and another thing. I actually gave up taking Stu seriously when he stuck his head in the sand regarding the 3 possibilities of how everything came to be. If he was able to dialogue on that, then I would have at least seen a person that is willing to be challenged or talk about the possibilities. But he stuck his head in the sand and said that the first option had a 0.5% chance (or thereabouts) and the other 2 options he had no clue about and then proceeded to ridicule those who believed in the first option.
Don’t worry about the details t8. We absolve you of having to remember any of them accurately, and we don’t mind you completely misrepresenting the details provided at the time of those conversations. We would expect no less from you!Quote So how can I take him seriously. I just give him one liners which is more than enough for him to try and make a meal out of.
A quick snack, usually.Stuart
Quote (t8 @ April 06 2009,20:21) Quote (kejonn @ April 07 2009,01:42) Again, no one here is trying to disprove God. It is basically impossible to prove or disprove a deity.
KJ.So you do not know if there is a God or not, yet you are willing to persecute YHWH and Yeshua. Isn't that at least a bit reckless? Or are you like Stu, where you do not have a clue, except to say that you know for sure that there isn't a God or in your case, you know for sure that YHWH isn't God and Jesus isn't the Christ of God.
Nothing is “for sure” when it comes to ancient events. None of us where there to validate ancient writings. But it does appear that modern events and evidence do point to the lack of presence of the bible's god.
He seemed to be so active back then, where did he go?
Quote I mean the obvious question for both of you is that if you don't have a clue, then why say that God doesn't exist, or that Jesus isn't the Christ. Not having a clue means you know don't know either way and yet your conclusions show that a decision has been made. I have no clue about a possible deity or set of deities. However, the lack of modern involvement in the world of any deity of revealed religions does point strongly to their nonexistence.
Quote If you had jury duty, and you didn't have a clue as to whether the defendant murdered someone, then how could you say that you know for sure it wasn't him if you don't have a clue? You couldn't. Lack of evidence would allow him to walk. Should we start punishing people just because we believe they did something?
Quote I think you need to ask your self some real questions and not let bias sway you anyway but the truth, or anyway, but the way that believers hold to. Oops, you used the word “truth”. That word is used to freely with Christians. Yet they never have a single way to show what they believe is “truth”. The bible just doesn't count. No more than the Rigveda.
Truth is what is truth to each individual.There is truth here in the physical world and there is spiritual Truth.According to Quantum Theory which is changing Science radically they supposedly found that in the earliest stages of existence at o-point energy a quark of creative life force completely entangled together was bubbling forth constant new creation up until the big bang! If we believe that in the beginning was God lets not box him into some rediculous belief as a little old man with a cane ready to wack his children for doing something wrong.There is no way to prove there is a God or prove God isn't! Its a choice of beliefs as is all the information you have accepted in your life. We literally create ourselves from birth by what we choose to believe as truth. There might be 10% of the beliefs in your mind that have been seemingly proven by experiencing them personally. The other 90% of information is from friends, teachers, books, newspapers, radio,tv, internet, magazines,here-say, gossip and conjecture. We take this unfounded information within our minds and build beliefs and dogmas with them as the absolute truth. Here is a truth. Believe what you choose to believe in life whatsoeve a man believeth in his heart, so he is! But you might as well believe everything as good, happy, peaceful,loving etc.! You'll feel better now and until the end. You can take a Bible and pick and choose scriptures to support anything you want to support. Especially the old testament. Personally I have made my composite of beliefs about the Bible based on Jesus, Yeshua Ben Joseph, and everything he said was Truth because I believe he was backed by supernatural powers as confirmation.However a person pictures his God, that is how he will express in this life.It's just my choice, I respect everyone elses.Love is key,Tim
thethinker
I think Kejonn has said it all. You have a brutal and miserable philosophy, caught from a brutal and miserable bigot, the zealot formerly known as Saul of Tarsus. I could argue on scientific grounds, but actually we need go no further than arguments based on basic human compassion. To blame disease on the religious concept of sin, no matter whose, is what you might call evil, and I would call grossly injust. Of course it suits the preacher, because it is the 'cause' to which he has the 'cure', him having not gone to medical school and so only having platitudes to prescribe.
Stuart
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